1. Field of the Invention
The subject matter described herein relates generally to electronically administering data streams and, more particularly, to electronically administering instructions embodied in electronic data.
2. Related Art
The receipt and administration of instructions for the broadcasting of commercials, such as advertisements during a television program, by a network broadcasting company is a complex process involving the adept administration of voluminous information. Currently, paper copy instructions (sometimes referred to herein as CIs) are received from, e.g., advertising agencies that act on behalf of advertising clients. The copy instructions generally provide, among other things, an ISCI code corresponding to a particular media that should be broadcasted, a flight start date, flight end date and a time to be broadcasted. Clerks review the copy instructions manually and enter pertinent information, such as the ISCI code, into a traffic system that supplies network programming to a transmitter. Many times revisions to the copy instructions are received, thus constant vigilance is required to prevent errors such as broadcasting a commercial according to an outdated copy instruction.
Voluminous advertising information is administered, as described above, by, for example, NBC Universal Inc. (NBCU). NBCU broadcasts approximately 1.6 million commercials per year and receives over 165,000 copy instructions per year (that includes approximately 600-800 faxes per day that are received in 13 separate streams) that generate over $5 billion dollars in advertisement sales revenue. In 2006, NBCU had $4.6 million in discrepancies of which $3.9 million resulted from errors within the current system and process.
It is now desired to eliminate the disadvantages, and reduce the number of errors, of the current system and process.